“Immediate medical help being provided to the injured. Mobilized resources, directed all concerned to ensure rescue and relief,” Prabhu said on Twitter. “Thorough investigation will be carried out to ascertain the cause,” he added.

India’s railway network, one of the world’s largest, is still the main form of long-distance travel in the vast country, but it is poorly funded and deadly accidents occur relatively frequently.

At least 146 people were killed last month in Kanpur, the same district as Wednesday’s derailment, when a train derailed in one of India’s worst rail disasters in recent years.

A 2012 government report said almost 15,000 people were killed every year on India’s railways and described the loss of life as an annual “massacre”.

The government has signed numerous deals with private companies to upgrade the ageing rail network.